The Pain Of The World
Processing “Weltschmerz”
A Weekend of Light
Dear Soul Friends,
I hope you are feeling well and you witness the moments of beauty in this currently chaotic world. Remember to always be tender with your precious heart.
I am still processing the rich experiences I had last weekend. After a wonderful workshop about the joy of reading in a library near to where I lived before, I was blessed to visit old friends and witness artists create a stunning exhibition of lights at Longford Lights Festival. On Sunday, I met beautiful people at the Holistic Fair in Navan and I drove back, elated and with a big smile on my face.
I usually keep myself away from the “news”, but I live in this human world, and sometimes I am forced to look. Before I drove off, I glanced at my phone only to find my friends and family sharing the recent happenings in Germany. The far right party came second in the elections.
The Darkness Arrives
It wasn’t the mere fact that so many people chose to vote for this party; it was the immensity of fear, anger and despair that I felt deep in my bones which catapulted me down into a state of powerlessness. I haven’t felt like this in a very long time. It felt like the pain of every single friend, family member and acquaintance was rushing through me, swirling my intestines into a tornado of emotions. Maybe the fact that I am so connected to our oneness made me feel stronger, maybe my heart was wide open and receptive due to the wonderful time over the weekend that I was also able to feel the pain of the world in my whole being: Weltschmerz. Weltschmerz is a German term, literally translated, meaning: world-pain.
All The Feels
Suddenly, the Love that I was so determined to spread felt like a drop of rain on a wildfire. I felt defeated. In the past weeks I have seen so many posts about who not to vote for, posts against this particular party and words of anger, fear and caution. As someone who has often encountered the impact of the law of attraction on things not wanted as well as wanted, I started to get angry that the collective still seems to focus on the things not wanted, only drawing more of this into our experience. This anger turned towards me, not being able to spread the word quicker. Determined not to shut down the feelings but to deeply feel and move them through my body, I started singing in my car. I sang and wept until I was breathless. I felt eerily alive and at the same time frozen. I went to bed, too exhausted from the weekend to think. I knew I had to get up early to get ready for my radio interview. I fell asleep listening to my meditation and woke up with a smile on my face. I thought I had processed it all and was ready to spread more Love.
How To Self-Soothe
The radio interview went really well. I enjoyed a nice cup of coffee afterward, eager to create and prepare for the week ahead. Suddenly it became hard for me to focus. My energy dropped, and it stayed down for a day. I spiralled down to the same feeling of powerlessness and all I could do was sleep. In the past, this would have lasted weeks. In the past, my thoughts would have started to tell me tales of how I am not good enough, not strong enough and how I am too small to make an impact. It feels good when you know that you won’t buy the sh* that your ego tells you anymore. I knew what I had to do. This was the time for radical self-compassion. “It is okay to be upset about the state of the world.” “It is okay to rest for a while.” “You are wonderful, keep going!” “Take your time to process.” “Cry it all out. All will be well.” These were sentences that I told myself. I kept myself warm and allowed myself to sleep in the safe cave of my bed.
In these moments, I always have help from my cats. It is funny, when my ego acts out dramatically, and I cry hysterically, my cat bites me, as if she wants to say: “Pull yourself together, girl! Have some dignity!”, but when I am deeply hurt I can feel their unconditional support. One cat lies at my feet, the other on my heart, both resoundingly purring. This is pure comfort. As always, the best way for me to process my feelings is to write. Thus, I sat down and wrote my heart out:
Weltschmerz
The eyes
fixated
on the screen
picking
pointing
pricking
the indexed finger
relentlessly raging
piercing the flesh
with splinters of spats
a subtle scrawl
evaporating
the bleak hand
of fear
scratching on the surface
until the temperature
drops
…
my world stops
in the silent shimmer
of shattered glass
stillness surrounds my soul
sunrays dance between the lines
the golden hour
melts into the ashes
the dust of blame
covering the ground
what looked like a window
appears to be a mirror
In the pieces of relief
righteousness
distorts the image
what has once been united
now is scattered
across the canvas
of time
Only the relentless flow
can wash the sharp edges
of shame
transforming shiny shards
at least
then
the pretty pebbles
draw our eyes
onto the shiny illusion
It is hard to look away
sometimes
it feels
like there is nowhere to go
nowhere
to escape
the status quo
the loneliness of yes
worn out
stranded on the western shore
the bitter sweet of no
tempting me to more
I close my eyes
still
my heart
is grievously heavy
there is no way around
I wail the song
of pain
until it echoes across the sea
wrapping invisible arms
around the ones that I can’t see
When
do we realise
that our soul
is free
who lives
on the other side of me
I sigh
and as I pour my heart
to poetry
my aching gut
distills the fee
into
heart-shaped
stones of Love
on every beach
I pass
Until the glass that parts
becomes the parting glass
“The first ripple of love has to rise in your heart.
If it has not risen for yourself it cannot rise for anybody else,
because everybody else is farther away from you.
It is like throwing a stone in a silent lake -
the first ripples will arise around the stone
and then they will go on spreading to the further shores.”
Osho
I love this Osho quote, it is so true. Somehow, I needed to have self-compassion first, before I could turn my anger about the world into compassion for the world. Still diving deep into processing what these events have brought up for me, I found the following quote in Barbara DeAngelis book “The Choice for Love”:
“Living with compassion means being willing
to feel the wound of the world, to not be afraid of it,
and to know that when your love touches that wound,
it does create a healing that travels through
the mysterious vortex of our shared oneness.”
Barbara DeAngelis
Alchemising The Pain
Weltschmerz. How does a single person alchemise the pain of the world?
Maybe it is indeed too much for one person. Maybe me, holding this vision in my whole being to live a more heartful, kind and loving life, is quite small. I am just one person. And yet, the wild wind of the west is urging me to move, for standing still would feel too uncomfortable. Maybe I am just a drop of rain on a wildfire. However, imagine we could all rain down our Love on the wildfire of fear. How powerful would that be?
Maybe the impact I have is quite small - for now. Watching the season change into the open arms of spring, my gaze turns towards the little buds that are emerging out of the rich, cold soil. Nothing grows immediately big. Everything takes its time. In order to spread some seeds, a plant needs to grow big first. Growth takes time, and so does the growth of the world. A plant doesn’t grow straight up, it mostly twists and turns, finding the best way to let the sun nourish it. This is my practice. Turning my heart towards Love, so that Love herself can nourish me in my growth.
Heal The World
Whatever happens, I will stand strong in my belief that we can make the world a better place by focusing on Love, as challenging as it is in these times. Love makes the impossible become possible. Love stands strong. In the end, if we refuse to Love, we only cut ourselves short of the very source that nourishes us. Whatever we do to others, we do to ourselves and the other way round. I can’t shake off the earworm of the wonderful song “Parting Glass” that has stayed with me since the beginning of the new year:
“Of all the money that e'er I had
I have spent it in good company
Oh and all the harm I've ever done
Alas, it was to none but me”
Thank you so much for reading. Joy be to you all!
If you want to know more about my practice of focusing on Love, please feel free to reach out in a message here or head over to my website.
Lots of Love,
Sadhbh (Nicole)
What’s New
Poetry Book
If you like my poetry, you might enjoy my poetry book “Limitless - Sharing The Wor(l)d Through Love’s Eyes”. You can purchase it on Amazon or my website (these links will take you off Substack), I now ship to the USA and Canada as well.
Workshops
I had the honour of contributing to Ireland Reads Day for Lanesborough Library. To encourage citizens to read more, I held a workshop about the joy of reading. We explored an intuitive approach to the world of words. I loved hosting this workshop. One part of it was choosing a book intuitively, and I picked up a children’s book in Irish which happened to be the tale of Sadhbh. There are no coincidences. Now I just need to learn Irish. :-) If you want to book me for a workshop or a talk, please reach out. I am happy to tailor one to your needs.
Poetry Channelling
I will be at several holistic fairs in Ireland in the next months, where I will be channelling some poetry. You can find all the dates and times here. If you want to receive a handwritten, channelled poem but don’t live in Ireland or can’t meet me at the fairs, you can purchase the poem on my website. You will then receive it via mail.
Podcasts & Radio
I had some beautiful podcast recordings in the past weeks. Keep an eye on my Instagram to see when they are online. In the meantime, check out my radio interview with the local radio station. Poetry reading included.
Next week I will be having another podcast interview. Tune in on Wednesday here, when I talk to the inspiring Tonia! Tonia and Jessica founded Wild Minnow, a company that nourishes individuals and companies towards wellbeing and balance. They are eager to help people pause and breathe with little, bite-sized programs. I am honoured to be contributing a weekly family breathwork session. Here we learn different playful breathing methods for a quick yet impactful pause during the day. Find out more about the very affordable membership here.
You find the recording of this article at the beginning!
It is hard to spread love, when there is so much negativity in this world. It is wonderful you have so much self awareness, and you were able to get yourself back.
My sister, first I'm so happy you have your kitties to soothe you. They really are the best.
As one who, in the past, has experienced the manipulation of my emotions and thoughts by the shenanigans of the external world, essentially forfeiting my inner alignment by focusing on what I don't want, I have some of my own hard-earned wisdom to offer. Take it or leave it. I respect your free will. :)
I find it helpful to take a step back and see the bigger picture- the pendulum of the political class is always swinging back and forth, left to right, one side doing things that causes the effect of the other to rise. Citizens of the world are fearful of the far left's socialist agenda and so they vote for the people they think will save them. When that doesn't work, the other side are voted in and on and on it goes. Nothing ever changes for the better. The rulers we elect are wings of the same bird- ruling over us from their high and mighty perch- while we are continually divided into tribes and propagandized to perpetually fight each other as the media stokes the flames. It's a classic strategy that keeps us voting and placing our agency on the OUTSIDE. We give up our immense innate power to create reality to utter control freak psychopaths!! But we don't have to....
Becoming an observer of this pattern and detaching enough to reclaim your alignment by focusing on what gifts you have to offer the world is the way through; taking the time to heal the parts of ourselves, the inner child, that desperately wants to feel safe in the world. This is the part of us that the ruling class manipulates, knowing that when we are in a state of fear we are more easily controlled. We are more likely to 'other' people we see as 'enemies'. But we are all just people, with the same blood & bones, the same desire for safety, the same ability to love.
This is a realm of duality and, as you know, contrast plays an important role in growth and expansion. I truly believe the external chaos is serving the greater purpose of awakening humanity back into wholeness. But it's an inside game- nobody is coming to save us. To heal the external divide we must heal ourselves. It's Natural Law. ❤️
As above, so below
As within, so without